• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.471-482
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• 2016

In this study, we focused on a speed-up of KIESSI-3D program, which is based on FE-IE techniques, by introducing a p-version dynamic infinite element method. In order to evaluate performance of the KIESSI-3D, numerical analyses for eight real-scale SSI problems are carried out. We considered three types of KIESSI-3D numerical models whose radii of near-field soil region($r_0$)are 1.2, 1.5, and 3.0 times of basemat radius of structure(R). In addition, SSI analyses using the SASSI2010 program are carried out used for comparison of accuracy and runtime against those of the KIESSI-3D. Numerical results show that the KIESSI-3D model of $r_0=1.2R$ is enough to give accurate solution. In view of the computing speed, the new KIESSI-3D was up to 25 times faster than the old KIESSI-3D.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.439-445
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• 2013

The soil-structure interaction(SSI) effect should be considered to accurately assess the seismic response of structure constructed on soft soil site other than the hard bedrock. Recently, the demand of SSI analysis has increased due to strengthening of the regulatory guidelines of nuclear power plant such as the USNRC SRP 3.7.2. In this study an accuracy and running time of the KIESSI-3D program for large-scale 3D SSI analysis were investigated. The seismic SSI analysis using the KIESSI-3D program was performed for several examples of large-scale three-dimensional soil-structure interaction system. The analysis results were compared with those of the ACS/SASSI program. Good agreements in transfer functions at selected locations showd that KIESSI-3D yields accurate solution for large-scale SSI problem. Moreover, it was found that running speed of the KIESSI-3D for large-scale 3D SSI analysis is much faster than that of the ACS/SASSI about 30~2000 times.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2015

This paper presents a detailed procedure for a nonlinear soil-structure interaction of a seismically isolated NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) structure using the boundary reaction method (BRM). The BRM offers a two-step method as follows: (1) the calculation of boundary reaction forces in the frequency domain on an interface of linear and nonlinear regions, (2) solving the wave radiation problem subjected to the boundary reaction forces in the time domain. For the purpose of calculating the boundary reaction forces at the base of the isolator, the KIESSI-3D program is employed in this study to solve soil-foundation interaction problem subjected to vertically incident seismic waves. Wave radiation analysis is also employed, in which the nonlinear structure and the linear soil region are modeled by finite elements and energy absorbing elements on the outer model boundary using a general purpose nonlinear FE program. In this study, the MIDAS/Civil program is employed for modeling the wave radiation problem. In order to absorb the outgoing elastic waves to the unbounded soil region, spring and viscous-damper elements are used at the outer FE boundary. The BRM technique utilizing KIESSI-3D and MIDAS/Civil programs is verified using a linear soil-structure analysis problem. Finally the method is applied to nonlinear seismic analysis of a base-isolated NPP structure. The results show that BRM can effectively be applied to nonlinear soil-structure interaction problems.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2014

In this paper, a coupling scheme for applying finite element analysis(FEA) programs, such as, LS-DYNA and MIDAS/Civil, to a nonlinear soil structure interaction analysis by the boundary reaction method(BRM) is presented. With the FEA programs, the structure and soil media are discretized by linear or nonlinear finite elements. To absorb the outgoing elastic waves to unbounded soil region as much as possible, the PML elements and viscous-spring elements are used at the outer FE boundary, in the LS-DYNA model and in MIDAS/Civil model, respectively. It is also assumed that all the nonlinear elements in the problem are limited to structural region. In this study, the boundary reaction forces for the use in the BRM are calculated using the KIESSI-3D program by solving soil-foundation interaction problem subjected to incident seismic waves. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a linear SSI seismic analysis problem by comparing the BRM solution with the conventional SSI solution. Numerical comparison indicates that the BRM can effectively be applied to a nonlinear soil-structure analysis if motions at the foundation obtained by the BRM for a linear SSI problem excluding the nonlinear structure is conservative.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.155-164
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• 2019

In this study, the soil-structure interaction(SSI) effect on the seismic response of LNG storage tanks was investigated according to the type of foundation. For this purpose, a typical of LNG storage tank with a diameter of 71m, which is constructed on a 30m thick clay layer over bedrock was selected, and nonlinearity of the soil was taken into account by the equivalent linearization method. Four different types of foundations including shallow foundation, piled raft foundation, and pile foundations(surface and floating types) were considered. In addition, the effect of soil compaction in group piles on seismic response of the tank was investigated. The KIESSI-3D, which is a SSI analysis package in the frequency domain, was used for the SSI analysis. Stresses in the outer tank, and base shear and overturning moment in the inner tank were calculated. From the comparisons, the following conclusions could be made: (1) Conventional fixed base seismic responses of outer tank and inner tank can be much larger than those of considering the SSI effect; (2) The influence of SSI on the dynamic response of the inner tank and the outer tank depends on the foundation types; and (3) Change in the seismic response of the structure by soil compaction in the piled raft foundation is about 10% and its effect is not negligible in the seismic design of the structure.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.367-374
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• 2019

We investigate the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the response of LNG storage tanks to vertical seismic excitation depending on the type of foundation. An LNG storage tank with a diameter of 71 m on a clay layer with a thickness of 30 m upon bedrock, was selected as an example. The nonlinear behavior of the soil was considered in an equivalent linear method. Four types of foundation were considered, including shallow, piled raft, and pile foundations (surface and floating types). In addition, the effect of soil compaction within the group pile on the seismic response of the tank was investigated. KIESSI-3D, an analysis package in the frequency domain, was used to study the SSI and the stress in the outer tank was calculated. Based on an analysis of the numerical results, we arrived at three main conclusions: (1) for a shallow foundation, the vertical stress in the outer tank is less than the fixed base response due to the SSI effect; (2) for foundations supported by piles, the vertical stress can be greater than the fixed base stress due to the increase in the vertical impedance due to the piles and the decrease in radiation damping; and (3) soil compaction had a miniscule impact on the seismic response of the outer tank.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 2023

Considering the non-linear behavior of structure and soil when evaluating a nuclear power plant's seismic safety under a beyond-design basis earthquake is essential. In order to obtain the nonlinear response of a nuclear power plant structure, a time-domain SSI analysis method that considers the nonlinearity of soil and structure and the nonlinear Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) effect is necessary. The Boundary Reaction Method (BRM) is a time-domain SSI analysis method. The BRM can be applied effectively with a Perfectly Matched Layer (PML), which is an effective energy absorbing boundary condition. The BRM has a characteristic that the magnitude of the response in far-field soil increases as the boundary interface of the effective seismic load moves outward. In addition, the PML has poor absorption performance of low-frequency waves. For this reason, the accuracy of the low-frequency response may be degraded when analyzing the combination of the BRM and the PML. In this study, the accuracy of the analysis response was improved by adjusting the PML input parameters to improve this problem. The accuracy of the response was evaluated by using the analysis response using KIESSI-3D, a frequency domain SSI analysis program, as a reference solution. As a result of the analysis applying the optimal PML parameter, the average error rate of the acceleration response spectrum for 9 degrees of freedom of the structure was 3.40%, which was highly similar to the reference result. In addition, time-domain nonlinear SSI analysis was performed with the soil's nonlinearity to show this study's applicability. As a result of nonlinear SSI analysis, plastic deformation was concentrated in the soil around the foundation. The analysis results found that the analysis method combining BRM and PML can be effectively applied to the seismic response analysis of nuclear power plant structures.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.377-388
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• 2016

This study is aimed to evaluate the embedment effect of foundation as compared to the surface foundation on the response of a base-isolated nuclear power plant structure. For this purpose, the boundary reaction method (BRM), which is a two-step frequency domain and time domain technique, is used for the nonlinear SSI analysis considering nonlinear behavior of base isolators. The numerical model of the BRM is verified by comparing the numerical results obtained by the BRM and the conventional frequency-domain SSI analysis for an equivalent linear SSI system. Finally, the displacement response of the base isolation and the horizontal response of the structure obtained by the nonlinear SSI analysis using the moat foundation model are compared with those using the surface foundation model. The comparison showed that the displacement response of the base isolation can be reduced by considering the embedment effect of foundation.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.379-389
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• 2016

This study intends to evaluate the conservativeness of the fixed-base analysis as compared to the soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis for the seismically isolated model of a nuclear power plant in Korea. To that goal, the boundary reaction method (BRM), combining frequency-domain and time-domain analyses in a twofold process, is adopted for the SSI analysis considering the nonlinearity of the seismic base isolation. The program KIESSI-3D is used for computing the reaction forces in the frequency domain and the program MIDAS/Civil is applied for the nonlinear time-domain analysis. The BRM numerical model is verified by comparing the results of the frequency-domain analysis and time-domain analysis for the soil-structure system with an equivalent linear base isolation model. Moreover, the displacement response of the base isolation and the horizontal response at the top of the structure obtained by the nonlinear SSI analysis using BRM are compared with those obtained by the fixed-base analysis. The comparison reveals that the fixed-base analysis provides conservative peak deformation for the base isolation but is not particularly conservative in term of the floor response spectrum of the superstructure.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.499-512
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• 2016

The boundary reaction method(BRM) is a substructure time domain method, it removes global iterations between frequency and time domain analyses commonly required in the hybrid approaches, so that it operates as a two-step uncoupled method. The BRM offers a two-step method as follows: (1) the calculation of boundary reaction forces in the frequency domain on an interface of linear and nonlinear regions, (2) solving the wave radiation problem subjected to the boundary reaction forces in the time domain. In the time domain analysis, the near-field soil is modeled to simulate the wave radiation problem. This paper evaluates the performance of the BRM according to modeling extent of near-field soil for the nonlinear SSI analysis of base-isolated NPP structure. For this purpose, parametric studies are performed using equivalent linear SSI problems. The accuracy of the BRM solution is evaluated by comparing the BRM solution with that of conventional SSI seismic technique. The numerical results show that the soil condition affects the modeling range of near-field soil for the BRM analysis as well as the size of the basemat. Finally, the BRM is applied for the nonlinear SSI analysis of a base-isolated NPP structure to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the method.